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Topic: The Port Salut inauguration (Read 1296 times)

Port Salut has always been among my favorites of the semi-hard cheeses. I think it is also because of the Brevbacterium which gives it the orange-red rind color and the fact that it is not only rindwashed but also curd washed and thus a "sweet" cheese.

I decided to make 2 wheels yesterday ...did follow instructions from Book "200 recipes". i appr. doubled the recipe( with an xtra ltr of milk) and used Flora Danica as Mesophilic Starter the recipe looks like this:

The Brine i still had from the recently made jarlsberg ( it was made by diluting 1 part salt wit 5 parts of water )

Those who read my previous cheesmakings will notice that i finally got myself a 30ltr Stainless Steel Pot and my PH Meter which went back and forth another time is finally at work too :-)

I started by heating the milkslowly to 90F/32C - PH 6.7

When temperature was reached i sprinkled FD & B.Linens to re-hydrate on top of the Milk for 5 min

I then stirred and let ripen for 60 minutes. PH 6.6

Then comes diluted Calcium Chrloride and stir

Followed by the diluted Rennet and stir again with an up/down movement

over the Pot and let stand undisturbed for 30 minutes or until a clean break is achieved...it took 40 minutes on mine

Clean break was achieved and i cut the curds now into small 1,5 cm cubes and let them stand for about 5 min before i carefully start stirring tem...actually not really much stirrin g but better described to keep them in motion .

As i kept moving the curds more and more whey will be released from the curds. one third of the Whey need to be emoved and replaced by equal amount of warm water until a temperature of 33C/92F was reached...and stir for 10 min the let the curds settle

you do the same again remove 1/3 whey and replace it with equal amount of warm water until you reached now 37C/98F and stir 10 min ...than let it settle and remove as much as possible whey now

Next to fill the Cheesmold lined with cheesecloth with the curds:

After i covered the cheesmold with the follower and did first a light pre-pressing and then some light pressing ...cheesepress would be nice to have but i opted out for an "alternative" way :-)

After 30 min light pressing it was time to re-dress the cheese and apply medium pressing...

Didn't make an actual picture of the medium pressing this time but it looked pretty similar to this

After 10hours pressing i took the cheese out from the mold and removed the cheesecloth. , here the 2 Cheeses...PH 5.4

Next step was the Brine Bath...which took 8 hours ( turning them over after 4 hours and sprinkling salt on the side which is on surface)

After the 8 hours Brining they were removed from the Brine and are drying on the rack

This is as much as i can tell now as i wait for them to dry on the Rack ( will change to use a finer wirerack to have better aircirculation for drying off}

So what's going on with these puppies? It's at the 3 month mark. Very curious.

-Boofer-

Hi Boofer...they are eaten already :-) here before the feast

To be honest i want to try this again as i wasn't entirely satisfied with it (probably the washing too often or not often enough ...need to figure that out ..) ...but with better cave and more space i shall have it better next time.

Probably a very stupid question - is it normal to see those air holes inside this type of cheese? What is the cause - is it the yeast action?

I am not 100% sure , they do not disturb me really but i think it may have something to do me using Flora Danica which i believe is gives more "gas" ...but i could be completely wrong with this maybe someone else with more knowledge could comment on this.

They look more like mechanical openings to me. Gas should produce quite round holes, that are really smooth on the inside. Those look more like curds that didn't fuse. With this cheese, and the light pressing at first, I would suggest pressing under warm whey at first. I think that is supposed to help with curd fusion.

Anyway, it looks pretty good. What were you disappointed about with this make? Was the flavour off, and if so in what way? Was the texture off, and also if so how? People might be able to make some suggestions with a few more details about what you would like to improve.

Regardless, a cheese for this attempt.

- Jeff

Logged

The wise do not always start out on the right path, but they do know when to change course.

They look more like mechanical openings to me. Gas should produce quite round holes, that are really smooth on the inside. Those look more like curds that didn't fuse. With this cheese, and the light pressing at first, I would suggest pressing under warm whey at first. I think that is supposed to help with curd fusion.

Anyway, it looks pretty good. What were you disappointed about with this make? Was the flavour off, and if so in what way? Was the texture off, and also if so how? People might be able to make some suggestions with a few more details about what you would like to improve.

Regardless, a cheese for this attempt.

- Jeff

Thanks Jeff,

it was with the rind development - the taste was not bad really but it was not really giving me that Port Salut taste as i remembered -it was ok for melting though ... i am not unhappy really just thought there is room of improvements.